Activist and writer Ida B. Wells-Barnett first became prominent in the 1890s because she brought international attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. At the age of sixteen, she became primary … Read MoreIda Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
George Samuel Schuyler, conservative columnist, was born in Providence, Rhode Island on February 25, 1895 to George Francis and Eliza Jane Schuyler. Upon his father’s death in 1898, George and his mother moved to Syracuse, New York. In 1912, at age 17, George enlisted in … Read MoreGeorge Schuyler (1895-1977)
A journalist, radical activist, and theoretician, George Padmore did more than perhaps any other single individual to shape the theory and discourse of Pan-African anti-imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century. Born Malcolm Nurse in Trinidad in 1901, Padmore moved to the United … Read MoreGeorge Padmore (1901-1959)
Chandler Owen, writer, editor, and founder of the radical journal the Messenger, with A. Philip Randolph, was born on April 5, 1889 in Warrenton, North Carolina. After graduating from Virginia Union University in 1913, he moved to New York City to become a fellow of … Read MoreChandler Owen (1889-1967)
Henry Walton Bibb was the eldest of the seven male children of Mildred Jackson. Henry was told that his father, whom he never met, was a man named James Bibb. He grew up in bondage in the Deep South, and claims to have been owned … Read MoreHenry Bibb (1815-1854)
